


every year we outlive ourselves

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Marijuana, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Minor Character Death, Other, POV Beverly Marsh, Underage Smoking, a lot of kissing your friends, alvin marsh in the background being terrible, some csa vibes, some teenage relationships, until he gets his just deserts thats all i'm gonna say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: An exploration of what it means to be Beverly Marsh.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom & Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh & Stanley Uris, Bill Denbrough & Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon & Beverly Marsh, The Losers Club & Beverly Marsh
Kudos: 4
Collections: Anonymous





	every year we outlive ourselves

She’s Beverly Marsh, and she’s kind of fucking amazing.

She tiptoes through the house, so as not to wake her awful father. Skin still crawling, tube of lipstick like her mother’s in all the photos – she opens the window, climbs onto the roof, looks at the sky. Writes her name with lipstick on the top most branch of the tree. Beverly, Beverly, Beverly.

Breaks it off like a falling tooth, says it harsh and jagged and crooked and angry. Bev.

The girl’s a weapon.

*

The girl is cigarettes with Richie Tozier by the bleachers. People don’t know this, but he learnt all his swearing from her. They get high on illicit weed, but it’s not too illicit, so it’s fine. Lying on a blanket on the floor of the clubhouse, he shows her porno mags he filched.

She traces the shapes of naked people’s bodies with a single finger.

“It’s all bullshit anyway,” she tells him.

*

She’s Bev Marsh, and she’s fifteen, lying in Bill Denbrough’s bed in her underwear.

He’s lying next to her, not talking, not touching her, just still.

They’re like sardines in a tin. The light from the window spills in, making his skin glow. The boxers he’s wearing are bright red, like balloons, like blood.

She’s Bev Marsh, and she kisses him because it’s a science experiment. She leans into him, their knees clacking together. She traces the shape of his Adam’s apple with her fingers like she’s asking a question.

The next day, she goes outdoors, smokes cigarettes with Richie again. They fool around, shotgunning the smoke even though it’s just nicotine and it’s unnecessary. She can feel Eddie’s eyes on them.

He hates it when they smoke, but he understands why they do it. She thinks, sometimes, that he wants to do it too, but he’s afraid, and he hates that he is afraid.

“So, you and Bill,” Richie says, flashing her a lewd grin, making a crude gesture with his hand. “How was it?”

Bev considers telling him the truth, all of it, the _my skin itches less when I’m with him, I like how it feels when he touches me, I like the control of it, how his breath hitches when I move, I like how he looks at me, I like how all of us Losers have always been orbiting him, but I’m the one who gets to see him like this and kiss him, now._

Instead, she knocks the cigarette out of his hand, kisses him hard, firm, on the mouth. His glasses go askew, and in the background, Eddie’s yelling about forest fires, but she pulls away and smirks at him, one point for Bev and none for Richie, and Eddie is white noise, and Richie is wiping his mouth and looking at her, wide-eyed, and she’s laughing, and none of it means a damn thing.

*

She goes birdwatching with Stan because she’s bored, and he’s there. He’s there and he’s quiet and calm in the way most people aren’t. They watch birds, and she falls asleep on the picnic blanket next to him.

When she wakes up, she wakes up with the certainty that he hasn’t touched her. She hates the fact that this is strange.

*

When she rips her shirt on a thornbush, it’s Mike Hanlon who gives her his coat. She puts her hands in the pockets and finds a map to Florida in there.

He tells her she can keep it if she wants, he’s got spares.

She asks him, why Florida.

He says, _anywhere that isn’t here will do._

She goes home, draws on it with markers, gives it back to Mike later.

Scribbly flamingos, shaky sunbeams, cacti like Arizona – she’s really done a number on it.

“This isn’t Texas anymore,” Mike says. “It’s Bev land.”

Bev laughs, delighted.

Stan walks up to them, asks what they’re talking about. When Mike tells him, he says, “You know, fuck Bill, I think Bev should be our leader.”

She’s walking on air for the rest of the day.

*

Ben makes her mixtapes, writes her poetry, seems to love her in a way that isn’t violent.

Bev doesn’t know what to do with it.

She kisses back, sings karaoke with him, lies down with her head on his lap, and lets him card his hands through her hair and talk about how he wants to protect her from the world, keep her safe from everything.

Bev _really_ doesn’t know what to do with it. She breaks up with him eventually, tells him that she’ll always love him but that she isn’t who she thinks he is.

“And who do I think you are?” he asks, quiet.

 _Lovable,_ Bev thinks. Instead, she says, “Girlfriend material.”

That’s not a lie, either.

*

She doesn’t mean to kill her dad, it just happens.

Bev is seventeen, and she’s in a corner, and she uses a chair to try and push him off her. The handle splinters, and a leg hits him in the throat. Lying on the floor, he says, “Bevvie,” and she snaps, slamming the chair against him again and again and again.

Later, she will ask Richie if he thinks that she is a bad person.

Right then, though, she calls Bill, because he’ll know what to do. They live in Derry, after all –it’s easy enough to figure it out, how to get rid of the body, how to hide him away.

“Hey, Eddie,” Richie says on the way back to Bill’s place – they’d decided Bev could stay with him, it wasn’t like his parents noticed anything anyway. “We can do your mom next.”

The other Losers wait for Eddie to do something, say something, tell Richie to shut the fuck up, whatever. But he doesn’t. He just wraps his arm around Richie’s waist, pulls him a little further away from the group, and the two of them start walking.

“Fucking finally,” Stan says, and Bev doesn’t know whether he’s talking about her dad, or about Richie and Eddie. Knowing Stan, probably both.

“What now?” Ben asks.

Bev looks at Mike, looks at Stan, looks at Bill, looks at Richie and Eddie, the way they’re leaning into each other like they’ve been superglued together. This messy, chaotic, protective gang of misfit boys is her family. She loves each of them more than anything else.

“Let’s go to the clubhouse and get _blazed_ ,” Bev says.

Bill raises an eyebrow. Stan sighs deeply, like an old man. Mike smiles, like he’s amused. Ben’s still looking at her like she’s the best thing since sliced bread, but without the romantic overtones. Eddie’s climbed onto Richie’s back, and they’re both bickering.

“Do we really need to get high?” Stan asks. “Look, even sober, _they_ are like this.”

“I don’t think Richie’s sober,” Mike says.

“Let’s do it,” Bill agrees. “You live only once.”

*

She’s Bev Marsh, and she’s fucking powerful.

She has six best friends, and a great sucker punch.

She doesn’t need a boyfriend, or a father. She doesn’t need anybody but the Losers.

There’s water at a distance, probably filthy, Eddie reminds them, but with the sun hitting it as it does it looks almost idyllic.

Bev is the first one to jump. It feels like she’s flying.

**Author's Note:**

> Might write more. Who knows, really.


End file.
